


Good Girl

by liquidheartbeats



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: AU, F/M, college years Westallen, early 00s, pre-smart phone era
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-05
Updated: 2019-03-05
Packaged: 2019-11-12 10:36:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,321
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18009347
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/liquidheartbeats/pseuds/liquidheartbeats
Summary: She was his good girl. He was her bad boy.





	Good Girl

 

**_March 5, 2002_ **

_He had a smile that could light up any room, as much as I hate that saying._

_Everyone knows that there is nothing particularly special about teeth—no matter how perfectly stacked or pearly white they are— and the mouth they inhabit. It has everything to do with their position, relative to the eyes—the sun to its moon, if you will._

_Eyes, the window to our souls, produce their own light source. Smiles are the benefeciary of a warm pair of eyes. Eyes can stand on their own. A smile cannot, for a smile on a man with no life in his eyes is a sign of monster._

_It means Go. Run. Never look back._

_And yet, his smile defied every logic. It was absolutely blinding, drawing me in like a moth to a flame. In the first year I knew him, not once did it falter enough that I could even get a glimpse of his eyes. Not once did I care. When I finally did, there was nothing. Good, nor bad. Docile, nor malevolent. Just vast emptiness. And it was terrifying._

_What was perhaps scarier, though, was the realization that I was already hooked beyond belief. That I was his_.

**One year earlier.**

Iris peeked out of her blinds, waiting for the signal. It was always the same. Two long, slow blinks of his headlights, parked two streets over, because the clanky hum of his father’s 1985 Toyota engine would surely wake up her father.

It didn't matter that Iris was almost twenty-one. Or that she had taken on adult responsibilities since the age of thirteen when her mother succumbed to cancer. The cop in her father would take one look at Barry Allen and rule him a troublemaker, thus signaling the end of their courtship that had only been going on a few weeks.

‘His house, his rules’ type nonsense.

Iris rolled her eyes at the mere thought. Her father was a good man, who'd worked hard to take care of her, but he was suffocating. Especially since her mother died. Iris knew it would hurt them both when she eventually left home, but she couldn’t allow herself to waste away in Central City forever.

There was a life out there for her, filled with magic, love, and mystery.

Love, however, is what intrigued her most.

A beat later, Barry signaled his arrival, pulling Iris away from her gloomy thoughts. Excitement surged through her. It had been a long week, and she was looking forward to letting her hair down. At least by her standards.

Iris pushed opened her blinds and flashed her laser pointer out of her second-floor window. Barry flashed once more to confirm he’d seen her and would wait the five minutes it took her to sneak out of the back door and hightail her ass across her neighbor’s backyards.

Iris gave herself one last once over in the mirror. She pushed open the long, Black coat-dress that gave way to a purple, spandex dress underneath. It was sexy, yet tasteful, stopping at her knees, but clinging to her curves. Pleased with the image looking back her, she applied one final coat of gloss to her lips, tousled her side-swept curls, and grabbed her purse.

By the time Iris made it to the car, she was winded. Climbing fences wasn’t an easy task. It was even harder in party wear. Barry didn’t notice her at first. He was zoned out, staring off into space. A blinding smile spread out over his face when he did, though. She shot him a little wave.

He leaned over and unlocked the door. “I didn’t know if you were going to make it.”

“Why?” Iris asked, slinking into the car, and buckling her seat belt. “Oh, cause of the close call we had last weekend?”

He nodded.

"If I hadn't convinced my father that I had left the house at 6 a.m. to get breakfast, I wouldn't have made it back. It's a good thing we stopped at Denny's."

“Yeah, but you ain’t sick of living like this? You're grown...as fuck," he said, emphasizing the fuck, as his eyes trailed down her body, "Yet, your father has you sneaking around like a 9th grader.”

A wave of embarrassment flashed through Iris. She and Barry led vastly different lives. While Iris had to fight to assert her adulthood to her father, Barry had been on his own since he was 14 years old—ever since his father, Henry Allen had been arrested for the murder of his mother, news that had completely shocked their small town.

Iris hadn’t known him, prior to that, but she was well-acquainted with his story, both the tragedy that had kick-started his life of juvenile delinquency and all of the bad decisions that allowed his reputation to precede him. Mostly byways of school-house gossip. Sometimes by her father’s griping, over some of his delinquent cases. This one particular Allen Boy, who ‘obviously took after his father.’

It was only three weeks ago when Barry walked into Jitters at closing and asked her out, and they’d holed themselves, after-hours, talking, that Iris got a first-hand account of his plight. She’d remembered him from elementary school, but they’d never been formally introduced. In the years since Nora Allen’s murder, Barry had been in and out of school, mostly out. In and out of jail, mostly in.

That she was almost twenty-one, but still unable to choose her own suitors, without judgment, Barry surely thought she was too immature for him. “I know, Barry,” Iris said, with a huff. “But.”

“It’s worth it, though,” he interrupted her, “If it means I get to see this beautiful face.” He reached over, thumbing her chin.

Iris smiled, both flattered and relieved. “Seriously?”

“Deadass.”

“Thank you," she said, blushing. "You look nice too.”

Barry flared the beaten up jean jacket he was wearing, that gave way to his plain black T-shirt and Jeans. “What, these old things?”

Iris laughed.

Barry dug into his jacket pocket and pulled out a fresh pack of Marlboros. “You want a smoke?”

Iris quirked her brows. “Me?”

“All this second-hand smoke you’ve been inhaling, may as well pop that cherry sometimes, right?”

Iris shook her head. “No, thanks.”

Barry retracted his hand. “Alright, suit yourself," he said, as he perched a cigarette into his mouth, in search of his lighter. Iris hadn't ever cared much for smokers, but she couldn't deny that there was something about the way he did it that was highly attractive.

He caught her staring. "What?"

"Oh, nothing," she said, heat rising to her cheeks. "Just...uh, wondering where we're going tonight? Bar? Party..."

“To my place.”

Iris's breath caught. As a result, she ended up taking in more smoke than she wanted too. She released the breath with a cough.

She’d had never had a serious boyfriend, definitely had never been over a man’s house after midnight before.

Between school, work, and taking care of her father’s home, she had little time for socializing. That’s before she factored in her father’s helicopter parenting. It was a wonder that she’d pulled off these secret dates with Barry for this long.

Sitting in the park all night, talking, or wasting time at a house party was one thing, but being alone at his home?

“That alright?” Barry asked. There was no push in his voice. No sly hand slinked across her thigh meant to coerce her. Just an open-ended question that led her to believe that she had an option to say no.

“Yeah, yeah, of course,” Iris said, quickly, not wanting to mess things up with him. “I just…” Her words caught in her throat. “Can’t. I mean, I’m not—“

“You’re not ready to fuck me?”

She nodded, meekly. "Right. I mean. Yeah."

A hearty laugh escaped him. “News if I ever heard any, good girl."

 

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
